Jack Du Brul - The Medusa Stone

He had spent his life devoted to the Church, and unlike many others who had taken up the calling, his faith had never wavered. But as he walked across the desert, he felt a superstitious dread tingling his spine. He wanted to discount Dawit’s ramblings, but he could not. Dawit’s tirade had rattled him, not to the core of his faith but at least to the core of his manhood, for what the old brother said sounded more of the work of man than of God.

The role of monks and the monastic system was not the spread of the gospel nor the recruitment of new members to the fold. A monk’s single occupation was prayer and contemplation for the salvation of others. It was the most difficult of callings for one never knew, like a parish priest watching his congregation flourish, if their devotion had been successful, if they had really touched the lives of others through their work. Thus Ephraim had had very little contact with the world outside of this valley. Dawit’s words had unsettled him. He was well armed to attack questions of faith, but ill equipped to deal with issues between men. It was a world as alien to him as the monastery was to those who lived beyond its cloistered walls.

There were two things he needed to do, two deeds that that would help him put into context what Dawit had said. He had little doubt that the old brother knew something he was unwilling to divulge, so Ephraim felt he had to prepare. The first deed, a guilty pleasure learned at the other retreat in Ethiopia, he looked forward to more than he cared to admit. The other was a mortal sin-the breaking of a confessional trust.

Suddenly, he whirled around so that his long robe danced against his exposed legs, and he started back the way he had come, his stride more determined, his path more direct.

In the cliff below the monastery was a deep cave, its mouth hidden from easy view by a fold-back of the valley wall, a natural sandstone screen. The cave had been used long ago as a resting place for shepherds lost deep in the desert and by primeval men, who had painted the walls with frescoes of their hunts. Before making it his personal sanctuary, Ephraim had watched it for many months to make certain he was not intruding on the solitude of one of the others. He did not know how many of his brothers in the past centuries had used the cave as their own retreat from the house.

Because he had planned for a long walk, he carried a flask of water and a modest meal of dried vegetables and a little salted mutton. Now inside the cave, he removed these items from the pocket of his robe and set them on the carefully swept sand floor. He placed the food against one wall next to the other flasks brought from previous visits and left for those times he came unprepared. He was surprised to realize he had built up quite a cache and wondered if it wasn’t time to spread it out into the desert for the small nocturnal creatures and the keen-eyed vultures.

The light in the cave was dim and ill suited for his purposes, and he had forgotten to bring a candle again. As he settled against a smooth wall, the coolness of the stone leaching through his cloak, he knew that part of his pleasure was the suffering afterward, as if the eyestrain was in some small way a penance. His heart pounded with anticipation, and he felt a tightness in his stomach as he did every time he reached for one of the books. The volumes were old, their leather worn by countless hands and the harshness of their African home. They were meant for a fine library in Europe.

Because Ethiopia and Eritrea-Abyssinia as the region was known then-were Italian colonies up until 1940, Ephraim had learned to speak the language as a young boy, and while he was sorely out of practice, he could read it well enough for the books to bring him tremendous pleasure and insight into the workings of the outside world. He had found the five volume set at their temporary home in Ethiopia. Selecting a book at random, Ephraim began to read laboriously. It was prophetic that the passage was from Othello , the scene in which the Moor realizes he’s been betrayed by his lifelong friend, Casio. Brother Ephraim’s love for Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets was his most guarded secret and also his only real tool for understanding the outside world.

Only after a few hours with the Bard would he tackle his second task, one that would make the monk realize that life today had become much more complex than even Shakespeare could have imagined.

In the best of circumstances, Mercer needed a minimum of two months to mount the type of expedition he was planning, but he’d given himself only another three days. Even with full cooperation from Eritrea, which he suspected Selome Nagast could not provide, he would land in Africa poorly equipped, underfunded, and lacking vital information.

Mercer had committed himself, unsure whether his vague hunches were right and with little equipment and even less data to back him up. It was daunting even for him, but every time he felt his commitment wane, he thought about his responsibility to Harry and he could temporarily slough off the exhaustion. Already, Harry had been gone for more than twenty-four hours. Mercer’s frustration was mounting. He worked as fast as he could, but still felt he wasn’t doing enough.

Since early morning, his fax machine had been buzzing continuously as had the ink jet printer attached to his computer. Both machines were producing reams of text about the geology of Africa’s Horn, gathered for him from both local and international contacts. Between phone calls, he’d managed to skim just a tiny portion of the accumulated material. Though his knowledge of Africa’s geologic composition was voluminous, he didn’t know enough of Eritrea’s specific makeup, its formations and history, for what he was about to attempt. He had yet to find even a vague hint as to the whereabouts of the kimberlite pipe.

The top of his desk was buried under two inches of paper, some organized in piles, others spread haphazardly. Somewhere under the clutter lay the plates he’d used for both breakfast and lunch. He hadn’t slept since returning from his late-night meeting with Dick Henna, and while the pots of coffee he had consumed kept him awake, a raging headache had formed behind his eyes and spread so that his entire skull throbbed. There was a break in the incoming faxes, so he reached for the phone. Prescott Hyde’s number was permanently imprinted on his brain.

“Yes, Dr. Mercer, what is it now?” Hyde was as tired of receiving the calls as Mercer was of making them.

“Bill, I’m probably going to need a blasting license once I’m in Eritrea. I’m faxing over copies of my master’s licenses from the U.S., Canada, South Africa, Namibia, and Australia. Whatever functionary issues them in Asmara should be suitably impressed, so I won’t need to be tested once I’m there.”

“Shouldn’t Selome be handling stuff like that? You have her cell phone number.”

“She hasn’t answered the damn thing all day, so the job is falling on your lap,” Mercer explained. Because Selome didn’t have a connection to the Eritrean embassy and Mercer didn’t know if she was involved with the kidnappers, he didn’t want to reveal his misgivings about her. He felt that Selome and Hyde’s collusion ran deep. “While we’re at it, the explosives I’ve ordered need an End User’s certificate before they can be shipped. You’ll need to arrange that. I also want to get some collapsible fuel bladders for filling the equipment at the site. I can order them from a civilian supplier, but the military versions are stronger.”

“Why not just use tanker trucks to refuel the equipment?”

“Once we get geared up, I can’t afford to have tank trailers laying idle. They’ll be making round-the-clock runs to bring in more diesel. You can’t imagine how many gallons per hour some of those trucks drink.”